Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 5: Gas Chambers at the Aktion Reinhard Camps (8). Gas Chamber Ventilation.

Gas Chamber Ventilation

In his Belzec book, with a reference to medical literature (published in 1931) on harmful gases, Mattogno writes:

Taking into account the density of carbon monoxide of 0.967 (relative to air), which is practically equal to that of hydrogen cyanide (0.969), and mindful that killing the victims within 15–30 minutes would have required reaching a lethal concentration of some 5,000 parts per million (5.7 milligrams/liter) within the gas chambers, it would certainly have been necessary to ventilate the chambers or to wear an independent breathing apparatus on entering, but none of the main witnesses ever mentioned this.[305]

The point by Mattogno is bogus, as many Aktion Reinhard witnesses (whom Mattogno also quotes in his work) mention the ventilation of the gas chambers. Few, if any, witnesses mention gas masks, but what would be the purpose if, as those same witnesses maintain, the exhaust gas in the chambers was ventilated out naturally before workers entered?

For Treblinka, as previously pointed out,[306] several survivors attest to the instalment of vents atop the gas chambers in order to remove the exhaust gas after a gassing. For Sobibor, Gasmeister Erich Bauer stated quite clearly:

After the gassing, after about 20 to 30 minutes, the engine was stopped. After the opening of the doors there was still a wait until the exhaust fumes were removed. Then the corpses were loaded onto trucks and driven to the pits.[307]

Franz Hödl, who was also present at Sobibor, similarly spoke of the doors as the agents of ventilation:

The outside walls along the building’s entire length were trap doors, which would be raised after a gassing. This was also the method of ventilating the chambers.[308]

Regarding Belzec, Karl Alfred Schluch stated:

After the gas chambers were ventilated, the Jewish Work Kommando under the leadership of a Kapo and removed the corpses out of the chamber.[309]

Mattogno oddly quotes Schluch’s above statement (though only focusing on his description of the gassed corpses) immediately after criticizing witnesses for failing to account for necessary ventilation measures (quoted above).

As with Auschwitz-Birkenau, Revisionists put a high emphasis on safety precautions that Jewish laborers should have been awarded in their functions during the Nazi exterminations; of course, such an emphasis is certainly misplaced, as the Nazi staff need not value the life of any Jew. As seen above, the gas chambers are said to have been ventilated after the gassings, prior to the removal of the corpses. This would have significantly reduced the concentration of carbon monoxide gas in their work environment. It should also be kept in mind that the laborers would not have been completely exposed to the gas, as they would have quickly entered and exited the chambers when removing the corpses, shortening their exposure times with the poison, and allowing time for the remaining CO concentration to ventilate out of the chamber.

***

As shown earlier on in this chapter, the path to the gas chambers at the Reinhard camps involved much more than a walk through the “tube” to the buildings; their evolution and development has never been addressed in the denier oeuvre. This chapter finds that, despite the unjustifiable obsession that deniers have shown towards the gas chambers, their arguments are abysmally ignorant of the multitude of evidence for their existence and operation. Despite mockeries and a few selected criticisms of witness statements, as Chapter 6 will detail, MGK fail to adequately and reasonably refute the credibility of the numerous witnesses (perpetrators, prisoners, and bystanders) for the gassings. Other documents related to the camps, such as related to fuel deliveries and the plunder of the victims’ property, substantiate and reinforce the witnesses’ validity. MGK’s focus on the gas chamber buildings in and of themselves without regard to the wider body of historic evidence relating to the camps, Nazi policy, or other realities in occupied Europe, also displays a surprising isolationist and unprofessional approach to the events.

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[305] Mattogno, Bełżec, p.67.

[306] See the section The Treblinka Camp in this chapter.

[307] Erich Bauer, 10.12.1962, BAL 162/208 AR-Z 251/59, Bd. 8, p.1669.

[308] Statement by Frans Hödl, StA Dortmund, Verfahren gegen Gomerski, Bd. III, p.1270.

[309] Karl Alfred Schluch, 11.11.1961, BAL 162/208 AR-Z 252/59, Bd. 8, p.1513.